Ballon d’Or and A Balloon Full Of Gas – My Sixth Sense Told Me It Would Happen

So England and Scotland drew each other at the Women’s World Cup that’s taking place in France next year. The draw was made in Paris on Saturday evening; the other countries making up the group are beaten finalists in 2015, Japan, and Argentina.

Meeting the Scots was kind of inevitable the moment England’s Chelsea forward Karen Carney said she ‘didn’t want to draw Scotland’ to the BBC a few minutes ahead of the plastic ball coming out of the big round glass thingy. You just knew it would happen.

The only surprise was that England didn’t find out who they’d be playing a day earlier thanks to some information leak from someone within the bowels of football. Because everything else these days seems to be leaked. We’ve become a civilisation that thrives on premature declarations.

Back before Y2K, the future Mrs Young (although we hadn’t met then), was readying herself to go to the cinema with friends to watch that year’s big, and surprise (it was the second highest grossing after The Phantom Menace), hit movie, The Sixth Sense. Her brother had already been to see it.

‘Bruce Willis’s character is dead’ he told her just before she closed the front door. Spoiler alert? Oh come on, you’ve had nearly twenty years so don’t blame me. That said, someone once wrote to Barry Norman to complain that he’d spoilt the end of Titanic for them by letting slip on an edition of Film ’97 that the boat sank….see I’ve done it again.

Back to Bruce. And my wife to be. Why would her brother do this? Did he tell her for her benefit? Of course he didn’t. There was zero – absolutely zilch – for her to gain from this volunteering of information, other than maybe saving £7.50 and giving her an evening back. All the benefit was for her brother, enabling him to feel good. He had imparted knowledge that she knew nothing of; now he was able to feel superior and emboldened that he had told her something she didn’t know.

Almost two decades later, that propensity to tell people things ahead of its officialness has reached fever pitch.

If you remember the 1999 M. Night Shyamalan film, you might remember these quotes from it too (and can play a game of ‘guess which character said it and when’). If you haven’t seen it, I’ve ruined it already…and saved you an evening.

“I Won An Award Once”

I imagine that Luca Modric, after years of honing his ability to reach the status of professional footballer, going onto secure many of the highest honours and play in the World Cup Final, was delighted that, when his efforts were recognised by being named the 2018 winner of the Ballon d’Or, he found out the day before when a load of messages popped up on his phone.

You can imagine him turning to Mrs Modric and saying, ‘We were invited to this lavish ceremony in Paris, but I’ve had about a hundred texts about it, so we don’t need to go now’. Of course, it did give the both an evening back; on  a school night too. And it prevented her from having to twerk for the DJ. 

“You Like Magic?”

Of course, there are leaks and there are leaks. Manchester City have been in the news recently for apparently making the Financial Fair Play rules completely disappear. How do we know? Step forward Football Leaks, a website that was set up in 2015 to ‘reveal transfer fees, wages and contract information’ about notable (not just any old) footballers.

The fees I can cope with, but wages and contract information. Well, (sarcasm alert) that’s everyone’s business isn’t it? But it reveals a lot more than just that. To be fair it helps to shine a light on wrongdoings such a tax avoidance and, in Manchester City’s case, potential fabricating of the sources of income in an attempt to bend the rules.

Like all leaks, we hear what action is being taken a day or two before we hear it from the official party. It’s a bit like those TV magazines (the cheaper ones) that tell you what’s going to happen in EastEnders or Corrie in the coming week, but cleverly disguises it with a question mark.

[Character] murdered in Albert Square? it hints, drawing you in, although you should not be in the the slightest doubt what’s going to happen.

Will [character] be murdered? You can bet your f******g life they will be. It does give you a whole week’s worth of evenings back though if you want them.

“They Only See What They Want To See”

A bit like the newspapers when describing young footballers buying £2m+ houses, there is a tendency to be quite selective about what is revealed, and when.

Take this week’s Brexit vote – or non-vote – and the leaking of that. It helped the government to get that out so that it would come as no surprise when Theresa May did the official telling. There was no big shock, we’d already been primed. Leaking bad or unwanted news has always been a non-shock tactic. It kind of makes sense to those who want to leak it.

I don’t get the leaking of some things though. For instance, the England football squad or more tellingly, the team. Why would anyone other than the opposition benefit from the leaking of team details before the match, especially when the leaker has gone to the length of a long lens to obtain it. Remember the fuss when coach Steve Holland accidently ‘let the team out of the bag’ before the World Cup match against Panama?

His ‘crime?’ He was photographed with a piece of paper in his hand that had some positional details. He had to, or did anyway, apologise for his mistake. Or for not remembering as he did his job – preparing footballers for a match – to think ‘I’d better not write anything down in case someone with a telescopic camera takes a image from great distance and sells it to the papers.’

I do get it; it’s human nature to want to reveal new information. I find myself doing it sometimes – usually with in-match incidents or score lines. There is a strange, almost perverse, pleasure from being able to tell someone something they don’t know.

It’s a form of one-upmanship I suppose, but it doesn’t necessarily make the teller big, clever, or as Jurgen Klopp would say ‘cool’.

“I See Dead People. They Don’t Know They’re Dead”

Probably the most annoying leaks involve people’s jobs. A member of staff at my own club was recently told – erroneously and by someone not in the know as it turned out – he was losing his job. It caused a near online meltdown. Imagine if a newspaper editor, journalist or photographer with a long lens were to find out they were sacked from their jobs by hearing it on the grapevine.

Yet it happens with nearly all football managers; the high-profile ones anyway, that find out they are surplus to requirements well before the club bother to inform them.

As an example, I knew Jose Mourinho was going to be Manchester United manager (it popped up on my phone) whilst Louis Van Gaal was hoisting up the FA Cup to the supporters at Wembley and Edward Woodward was pulling the edge of the Dutchman’s blazer as he walked up to the Royal Box to say ‘Louis, when you’ve finished celebrating the cup win, can I have a quick word?’

“I’m Ready To Tell My Secret Now”

It’s not just newspapers and websites that like a bit of a leak. There’s always someone on the make these days, and a spot of CCTV footage is worth quite a bit in the right/wrong hands.

This week, such footage emerged of Arsenal players inhaling the legal high known (apparently) as Hippy Crack from balloons at a party – in August but what’s a few months amongst friends? – so we can only assume that someone with access to the cameras at the London establishment handed them over to those righteous folks at The Sun. Dave Kitson, on Talksport, said the players’ futures would be in doubt. He then said that Raheem Sterling (no stranger himself to the old laughing gas) had incited jealousy by showing off on social media, so I guess Kitson knows all about futures and doubt. Presumably, if Phil Foden did the same as Sterling, he’d be showing his Mum what a clever little boy he is.

Arsenal have played down the furore. To be fair, the balloon stuff seems small fry – although no laughing matter – compared to the other extravagances. These multi-million-pound earners (see Football Leaks) players spent £30,000 on alcohol and invited seventy girls to the private bash too.

The rest of their money they just wasted. 

“Stuttering Stanley! Stuttering Stanley!” 

After a great start to the season, Accrington haven’t won in League One since October 20th. What’s that got to do with football leaks? Nothing. But this is a column on a website that is all about lower league football.

And you don’t think I’m wasting a line like that, do you?